2 out of 5

And sometimes Grant’s allowed to miss the mark, and I guess he had to do his UK duty by delivering a story about Indian culture at some point.

“Vimanarama” came during the brief spate where Grant remembered he used to write indie books and so really quickly vomited all over Vertigo.  The amazing We3 and Seaguy came from this soup, and then Vim – which looks great, and conceptually seems solid, but plays too quick and stupid with it’s story when read in one sitting.  The basic pitch could be said to be rewriting vishnu lore as Kirby-sized supergods.  It makes for some great artist fodder for Phillip Bond, who takes to the big and beautiful heroes with his typical big-eyed cartoonish energy – but the story is way too massive to funnel into a purposeful three issues (each of the Vertigo books he put out at this time were three issues), even for Grant’s massive-to-micro plotting style.

The world is ending, and lead boy Ali is just meeting his arranged-marriage partner, who, lucky, is a hot chick, but he’s still got some lingering questions about love and destiny and jive.  That has to get put on hold for this end-of-the-world biz, along with the search for his baby brother, who has wandered into the basement of Ali’s family’s corner shop where there happens to be an elevator to a race of ancient Indian gods… natch, they can save the universe but they need Ali’s sexy bride to do it…  The gods beneath the earth battling ancient evil is totes Kirby, totes his era of comic-bookery, and though its filtered through Indian frill, Bond was obviously mindful of The King’s influence when designing his super heroes.  That foreign spin on things is a fun concept, but it’s too much.  Grant tried to add extra character plotting into this thing – perhaps to tie it into his other series, perhaps because there’s really no such thing as a “simple” Grant Morrison story, I have no clue – and it just clutters it up, Ali’s personal growth and internal plodding feeling like a clumsy combination and out of place with the old-comic style.

So.  It reads super quick, and, as mentioned, looks fantastic, but I normally get a nice sense of WTF when reading Grant’s stuff, and I just don’t get anything from Vimanarama.  A big and loud popcorn book.